the end of all songs

'one can and does believe that one will escape from living in circles.'  - katherine mansfield who spent part of the last year of her life at gurdjieff's commune. 

horsemouth has been reading anna neima's the utopians: six attempts to build the perfect society, one of them is  gurdjieff's commune at fontainebleau in france.

another one of his visitors there, and a subsequent founder of a utopian commune back in the united states was the poet and author jean toomer (whose writing was an inspiration for much of marion brown's georgia trilogy). he founded a short-lived commune at  bonnie oaks near briggsville, wisconsin (near the town of portage) together with his later wife, the author margery latimer. this commune is largely missing from his wikipedia entry but can be found in hers. 

the aim of this commune (in toomer's words) was;

'to eradicate the false veneer of civilization, with its unnatural inhibition, its selfishness, petty meanness and unnatural behaviour.... adults can be re-educated to become as natural as little children....'

he also held some unfashionable ideas about the role of men and women in this set up.

frank lloyd-wright and his wife olgivanna (who had nursed katherine mansfield when she was at the gurdjieff commune) founded an architectural school called the taliesin fellowship inspired by gurdjieff's teachings. 

'I do not want you to have the idea that taliesin is a school, or a community. it happens to be our home and where we work, and these young people are my comrade apprentices: no scholars. they come to help, and if they can learn-well, we are very happy...' - frank lloyd-wright to RIBA in 1939. 

its surviving members run an architecture school in paradise valley arizona. 

it is nice to see the decadents get an outing (after the aubrey beardsley documentary). ernest dowson the decadent poet who drank himself to death gets an outing because michael moorcock lifted his poem the end of all songs as the title piece for moorcock's novel the end of all songs. and so, by curious process, buck dharma of the blue oyster cult ends up picking up those lyrics and using them for a song (they often used other people's lyrics - patti smith, helen wheels, sandy pearlman, murray krugman, richard meltzer, harry farcas, don waller(?), jim carroll, ian hunter, michael moorcock himself).  

in a bit horsemouth goes to unlock the abbey. after that breakfast. it is a cool grey morning. after that a phonecall (horsemouth suspects there is bad news).